Apple says more than 40B apps have been downloaded

Apple says people have downloaded more than 40 billion apps on for the iPhone, iPad and the iPod Touch, nearly half of them in 2012.

CUPERTINO, Calif. — Apple says people have downloaded more than 40 billion apps on for the iPhone, iPad and the iPod Touch, nearly half of them in 2012.

Apple Inc. said Monday that December saw record downloads of more than 2 billion apps. There are 775,000 individual applications available in the app store. Apple says it has paid app developers more than $7 billion.

Apple launched its app store in 2008. The store hit the 10 billion downloads mark in early 2011. In March 2012, Apple announced that more than 25 billion apps have been downloaded.